10' nearly, over which is the narrow pass already mentioned as the Caspian Gates.

Thus Media on most sides was guarded by the strong natural barriers of seas, mountains, and deserts lying open only on the south, where she adjoined upon a kindred people.

Her neighbors were for the most part weak in numbers, though warlike.

Armenia, however, to the north-west, Assyria to the west, and Persia to the south, were all more or less formidable.
A prescient eye might have foreseen that the great struggles of Media would be with these powers, and that if she attained imperial proportions it must be by their subjugation or absorption..